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560 WCKL , Catskill Is Off The Air

M

MHVRadiofan

I am not up near Catskill this morning but 560 WCKL was off the air at least all day Friday and Saturday. I wonder if Dodges illegal cobbled together, improperly transmitter system failed (this can also happen to a professionally run station), or if the FCC finally caught up with him and issued a cease and desist order. His illegal simulcast on 103.7 is also off. One can only hope. If so, Hopefully the FCC will give him a chance to sell it rather than kill the frequency.
As mentioned in another thread the owner of 103.7, North East Gospel Network, Was granted a silent STA in May while the transmitter is moved. However, WCKL was on the frequency before and after that date. I wonder if Dodge & company thought they could “borrow it” in the meantime.
 
Or maybe they should bring back the Black United Fund of NY to own the station to go silent. Or maybe they should simulcast a CC station such as WCTW's "The Cat" or WCZR's "Oldies 93.5" on 560 AM all day, and goes dark all night. This is part of the deal to bring back the "Keep the License Alive" deal. CC has been simulcasting on 560 for many years including WBPM's former "Cool 92.9", WCZR's former "Cruisin' 93.5" (now "Oldies 93.5") and WCTW's former "Lite-FM" at 98.5 (now "The Cat") for several years. About 2 or 3 years ago, Brian Dodge owned the station, and began on the air as "Family 560", and it failed, and absolutely gone nowhere. This is why WCKL failed and Brian Dodge will force to be out of his job. I hope maybe Black United Fund should bring it back.
 
Let me get this straight. You would like the Black United Fund to re-acquire 560 AM? Hopefully the FCC will ban this incompetent company permanently. What do you mean Brian Dodge will be forced out of his job? He's a owner not an employee. He could go bankrupt which serves him right.
 
This station to me is more bother than its worth. 3 towers directional for just 1KW since it must protect Springfield, Ma. Very tall towers because it is at the low end of the band. Only 43 watts at night.
 
I say get a non-commercial operator to buy the station and put something innovative (that FMs won't touch with a 20' pole) on it!
 
ChuckRoast said:
Let me get this straight. You would like the Black United Fund to re-acquire 560 AM? Hopefully the FCC will ban this incompetent company permanently. What do you mean Brian Dodge will be forced out of his job? He's a owner not an employee. He could go bankrupt which serves him right.
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I have decided to let Disney have his fun posting his ridiculous nonsense, and totally ignore him. It is not worth the waste of time to respond; he would not understand anyway . What he says has absolutely no meaning or logic, I can’t imagine how he comes up with his ideas. So I will just leave it at that.
 
danikayser84 said:
Time to turn in the license perhaps? A lot of small AMs have been dropping like flies in recent years... :(
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I don’t know if he would voluntarily do that. He would try to sell it first. While I have heard a few commercials on WCKL in the brief time I listened, I wonder where he gets his financing from. Back in February he signed a deal to buy WPNI, Amherst from Pamal. WCKL may be back on for all I know; I can only get them when I visit Catskill. I live in Hyde Park. I thinking the issue am more likely technical or the FCC shut his illegal operation down.
 
>>>Time to turn in the license perhaps? A lot of small AMs have been dropping like flies in recent years...<<<

I doubt any AM stations, even troubled ones, in decent sized communities, have turned in their licenses. They are not dropping like flies. Someone will buy them, even to put a religious or ethnic format on them, if the price is right. Many owners are selling for far less than they hoped. But in all of NY State, even far upstate, I haven't heard of any AM station going dark.
 
There have been plenty, actually.

On Long Island, WGLI 1290 Babylon and WLNG 1600 Sag Harbor were both bought and taken silent to allow NYC stations to upgrade on co- or adjacent-channels.

In the Hudson Valley, WBAZ 1550 Kingston failed many years ago and went dark. So did WSPN 1280 in Saratoga Springs.

WHHO 1320 in Hornell went dark a couple of years ago and surrendered its license; it had a slew of issues including ownership disputes and deteriorating technical facilities.

Cross the state line to Pennsylvania and the list starts getting much longer, including two stations with rimshot Pittsburgh signals in just the last couple of years.

I can think offhand of easily a half-dozen AMs licensed within New York State that are one expensive technical failure (say, a downed tower or a transmitter fire) from not being worth reviving.
 
There was an AM station in Ticonderoga NY on the north end of Lake George that turned in there license a couple of years ago. I don't remember the call letters.
 
WIPS 1250. I'd forgotten about their license surrender, but yes, that one goes on the list, too.
 
Barnstable " donated" 1570 in Riverhead several years back to 5 Towns College.... I was in Riverhead yesterday for the first time in more than 10 years. 1570 was silent. Then there is 1170 in the Hudson Valley... that was silent as of last week. And the list just keeps on growing.
 
Scott Fybush said:
There have been plenty, actually.
In the Hudson Valley, WBAZ 1550 Kingston failed many years ago and went dark. So did WSPN 1280 in Saratoga Springs.
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The 1280 in Saratoga Springs that went dark was WRSA. This happened around 1962. Apparently 900 AM in Saratoga Springs was using the WSPN call letters at that time....becoming WKAJ around 1964. Currently...the WSPN call letters are still in use in Saratoga Springs...on Skidmore College's 91.1 FM....the only station still licensed to Saratoga Sprngs....The current WSPN has existed since 1974....
 
Yes, I should have remembered that over the decades, some AM stations did fail, especially day-only operations. And several, such as 1290 Babylon, 1590 Waterbury CT and Plainfield NJ, 1010 Little Rock, etc. were bought by the owners of big stations in NYC and elsewhere, to silence, which would give the more valuable station the ability to increase power or improve their antenna patterns.

But there really hasn't been a rush to shut down AM stations in the last few years that you might expect with the audience moving to FM. Canada and Mexico, via government's help, has been shutting down AM stations left and right. In the U.S., however, the trend to either take AM stations dark or move AM programming to FM, has surprisingly slowed. (I'm not counting using translators to simulcast an AM station. That trend is picking up. But you still need the AM station on the air for the simulcast and to hit the suburbs which can't receive the translator.)
 
Problem with Canada is, they won't release the frequencies or allow the stateside AMs to upgrade without some real fancy footwork.
 
Some others that went dark; WIGS 1230 Gouvenor, NY, WXKW 1600AM licensed to Troy, NY in the 60's , a 500 watter. There was WXKW ,10KW with 7 towers before that in the Albany area, bought up by 2 other stations and signed off. If want to look over to Vermont, WHWB, Rutland, originally on 1000, moved to 970 before it went dark.
 
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